"Put the Big Rocks in First"

By Kendall Hicks



One day, an expert in time management was speaking to a group of business students. To drive a point home, he used the following life-changing illustration. He stood before the group of high-powered overachievers and said, "Okay, time for a quiz," then he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouth Mason jar and set it on the table in front of him. He also produced a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top he asked, "Is this jar full?"

Everyone in the class yelled, "Yes." The time management expert replied, "Really?" as he reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. He then asked the group once more, "Is the jar full?"

By this time the class was on to him. "Probably not," one of them answered. "Good!" he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He dumped the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar full?"

"No!" the class shouted. Once again he said, "Good." Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and poured it in until the jar was filled to the brim. After this, he asked, "What is the point of this illustration?"

One eager beaver raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!"

"No," the speaker replied, "that's not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in at all!"

What are the "BIG ROCKS" in your life? In other words, what things in your life are most important? Are you allowing the urgency of gravel, sand and water to fill your life before you take time for your family, your spiritual and physical well being and your friends? If we don't put these BIG ROCKS in first, we'll never get them in at all.

E.M. Gray, who spent his life searching for the one denominator that all successful people share, stated that the one factor that seemed to transcend the rest was that successful people put first things first. In other words, successful people begin each day by taking care of the BIG ROCKS before they deal with the gravel, sand and water.




Are the BIG ROCKS in Your Mason Jar?